Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Sentiment: II. LifeGrowing Gray
Austin Dobson (18401921)A
Me miserum. Here ’s one that ’s white,
And one that ’s turning;
Adieu to song and “salad days.”
My Muse, let ’s go at once to Jay’s
And order mourning.
Renounce the gay for the severe,—
Be grave, not witty;
We have no more the right to find
That Pyrrha’s hair is neatly twined,
That Chloe ’s pretty.
Light canzonet and serenade
No more may tempt us;
Gray hairs but ill accord with dreams;
From aught but sour didactic themes
Our years exempt us.
You think for one white streak we grow
At once satiric?
A fiddlestick! Each hair ’s a string
To which our graybeard Muse shall sing
A younger lyric.
Grow rare to youth because we rail
At school-boy dishes?
Perish the thought! ’T is ours to sing,
Though neither Time nor Tide can bring
Belief with wishes.